The venue was the Long Room of Lord’s Cricket Ground; the occasion: Sourav Ganguly’s book release, and the topic was the future of Test cricket. In discussion were four former Test captains, and Sir Jeffrey Archer.

Ganguly, Kumar Sangakkara, Mike Gatting and Mike Atherton all agreed on one point that Test cricket’s future faced the challenge from Twenty20 cricket.

No one better understands the practical situation at the ground level than Ganguly. His role as a cricket administrator, being President of the Cricket Association of Bengal, would have helped him pick the pulse of the cricket fans.

‘We hosted nine IPL games last year and every game was full. People never got tired; they just turned up game after game. There’s a sea change in cricket and people have started liking the shortest format of the game,’ said Ganguly.

The legendary India captain said, Day-Night Test matches is the best way to keep test cricket alive. ‘The challenge is being in the stands for five days, that’s why I believe Day-Night Test is the way forward. Everyone works, you can’t just get out of office all the time. Test cricket needs to be revisited. We have to understand times have changed and we have to move with the times. Selling Test cricket nowadays other than England is a huge, huge challenge.’